Adaptation

Do I have an original thought in my head? My bald head? Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn't be falling out. Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I am a walking cliche. I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong. A bump. The dentist called again. I'm way overdue. If I stopped putting things off I'd be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass. If my ass wasn't so fat, I would be happier. I wouldn't have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time. Like that's fooling anyone, fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more, improve myself. What if I learned Russian or something? Or took up an instrument? I could speak Chinese. I would be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short. Stop trying to fool myself and everyone else that I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that? Just be real. Confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don't have to be attractive. But that's not true, especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that's what's wrong with me: bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But I'll still be ugly, though. Nothing's going to change that.
- Charlie Kaufman, Adaptation (2002).

That's how Adaptation begins, with Nicholas Cage's (as Charlie Kaufman) voice over a black screen while the credits fade in and out, in tiny print, at the bottom of the frame. This is how you first come to know the main character in the film, by being immediately thrust inside his head. Charlie is the film's main character but he's also the screenwriter who wrote the film, which is an adaptation of a book called The Orchid Thief, by Susan Orlean. Well, sort of. The film is not only about what's in the book upon which it is based, but also about Charlie Kaufman's struggle to adapt the book into a screenplay. You need to see this movie to understand what it's about; it's not something you can really comprehend until you've seen it. And even then, it might be a struggle to figure it out.

It's one of my favourite films. Not just because I identify with the main character, but I think that is a factor. I don't have to be concerned about a receding hairline just yet but, based on that opening internal monologue and his behaviour during the rest of the film, it's clear that we worry about the same sort of things. When I say 'we' I am referring to the character Charlie Kaufman, as portrayed by Nicholas Cage in the film, and not the real Charlie Kaufman who wrote the film. I don't know enough about Charlie (the screenwriter) to say whether he and Charlie (the character) are the same or even particularly similar. I just want to make it clear that I make the distinction between the writer and the character, and don't believe that Charlie Kaufman, in real life, is just as Cage portrayed him on screen. I understand that the film is a work of fiction.

Now that the disclaimer's out of the way, I can get back to talking about the movie. There's a lot in there. I watched it again last night to refresh my memory and re-examine my favourite scenes. There's a scene at the end of the film where Charlie and his twin brother, Donald, (a character the real Charlie invented for the film - he doesn't have a twin) are talking to each other while hiding from some people who are trying to kill them. Donald is like the anti-Charlie; they approach life in completely different ways. While Charlie is miserable, Donald is anything but. Here's the scene:

Charlie: I don't want to die, Donald. I've wasted my life.

Donald: You did not. And you're not going to die.

Charlie: I wasted it. I admire you, Donald, you know? I spent my life paralyzed, worrying about what people think of me and you, you're just oblivious.

Donald: I'm not oblivious.

Charlie: No, you don't understand. I mean that as a compliment. There was this time in high school. I was watching you out the library window and you were talking to Sarah Marsh.

Donald: Oh, God, I was so in love with her.

Charlie: I know. And you were flirting with her, and she was being really sweet to you.

Donald: I remember that.

Charlie: And then, when you walked away, she started making fun of you with Kim Canetti. And it was like they were laughing at me. You didn't know at all. You seemed so happy.

Donald: I knew. I heard them.

Charlie: Well, how come you were so happy?

Donald: I loved Sarah, Charles. It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn't have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want.

Charlie: But she thought you were pathetic.

Donald: That was her business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago.

"You are what you love, not what loves you." Those few words represent such a powerful idea. Imagine strong emotions not contingent on what someone else said or did or thought. You would never be heartbroken, at least not in the same way you could be if you based your feelings on what you mean to someone else. Is it possible to really do that, to love - and live - like that? I want to believe that it is but I don't think I'm capable of it at this point in my life. It's an incredibly liberating thought, to unashamedly let yourself feel whatever it is you feel, uninhibited by how your feelings are received by others. This is what's holding me back. Rejection after rejection has broken me, I feel undesirable, and I don't let myself love anymore, or at least I don't believe that my love is worthy of anyone. I used to be passionate; I used to love wholeheartedly, believing that my feelings might even be reciprocated, but I don't anymore. I don't know if this is my way of trying to protect myself from pain or whether I genuinely believe I'm unlovable but, either way, it's how I am. I don't know how to change.